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In Love with Norma Loquendi
by William Safire
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Random House (1994-08-30)
ISBN: 0679423869
EAN: 9780679423867
Dewy Decimal #: 428
Hardcover: 349 pages
Edition: 1st
Release Date: 1994-08-30
SKU: 29759
Condition: New
Comments: THIS IS THE LARGER SOFTBACK BOOK! SAME ISBN 0679423869. THE UNABRIDGED 1ST EDITION. WITH GREAT ILLUSTRATIONS! SOFTCOVER BOOK AND PAGES ARE IN PERFECT CONDITION! NEW BOOK! NOT A HARDCOVER BOOK. Rapid shipping w/FREE tracking. GREAT PACKAGING . Air Mail. YW.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
The Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist describes his lifelong fascination with Norma Loquendi--common speech--in a collection of columns that celebrates the mysteries and continual evolution of the English language. 15,000 first printing.
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Customer Reviews
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"Woe is me" is not a copula
Rating  (1)
Date: 2000-03-12
2 out of 7 customers found this reveiw helpful
Safire begins his book with an essay on copulas. Copulas are linking verbs, and most often they are formed from the verb "be." " John is a boy" is a copula. One of the traditional rules of English grammar is that a noun or pronoun must be in the nominative case to complete the meaning of a copula. These days in all but the most formal speech and writing pronouns in the objective case are more likely to be used with copulas. But then Safire makes an error. He writes "The grammatically pristine form of "Woe is me" is "Woe is I" or "Woe am I" but go tell that to Ophelia and Isaiha." "Woe is me" is not a copula. It is a "noun + verb + dative object" construction. There is no controversy here. The great grammarians Matzner, Abbott, Franz, Jespersen, Visser and so on have all demonstrated that in Early Modern English dative objects were less likely to have prepositions before them then dative objects today. Safire quotes a professor who says as much but Safire will have none of it. He says that Shakespeare did "intend to equate `woe' and `me.'" He then goes on to write "Sometimes the truth lies flat and you only confuse yourself looking for "understood" hidden words." By ignoring the facts Safire got it wrong. There is nothing hidden here. "Me" is understood to be a dative. In Old English the dative pronoun for the first person singular was "me," the accusitive was "mec," and the nomanitve was "ic." In Old English there was no need to use a preposition to mark the dative pronoun. In fact to use a preposition with a dative pronoun was a pleonasm. With the decay of inflectional forms in Middle English period, the pronoun "mec" became obsolete and was replaced by the dative pronoun "me". Because of this there rose a need to distinguish the dative from the accusitive and this was done by using prepositions. But the unmarked dative, the dative without a preposition remaind a regular feature English throughout the Early Modern English period.
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A generally interesting, sometimes tedious book.
Rating  (3)
Date: 1996-06-18
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
Safire's In Love with Norma Loquendi is a compendium of
previously published articles coupled to responses from readers. The book is an
eclectic collection of uses and misuses of words and
phrases. For those with an interest in the fine definition
and use of words, the book is a reasonable read. It is
particularly good for those who like to read short segments,
move on, and return to the book later. Each section is
a page or so in length - just right for certain situations
where a few minutes of reading is all you want. Some of
these sections get a bit long-winded and tedious, but the
next page generally has a change of subject.
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Broadened my emotional and religious horizons.
Rating  (5)
Date: 1996-06-18
0 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
We're in love with her too
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